American Elections

None of my principle characters were American citizens during the period my three novels spanned.  However, they were able to witness the election process without the blinders of emotional involvement.  In Slogans: Our Children, Our Future, during his Americanization class, Massey reflects on the difference between Russia's and America's method of changing government in 1920.

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Miss Smith's next words faded as Massey thought of what happened during the last month.  In Russia, a bloody war was needed to decide which political organization would lead the country.  By contrast America’s change in government happened with ballots, not bullets.  Massey had just witnessed his third national election and was still amazed.  For the last six months he had watched the followers of Harding and Cox battling for the right to govern America.  But in spite of all the heated debates, not a shot was fired and only one nose was bloodied, and that happened outside Winnies’s and was more the result of illegal spirits than political zeal

* * * 

I wonder what those Americans in 1920 would think of our American election today?